X William WALLACEDear Kenneth, (if I may be so bold)Thank you for your nicely worded request forinformation concerning William you would besurprised how many enquires we get from people whonever say please or thank you, but first I have topoint out a few things.The Cheshire Constabulary was formed in April1857; there are many thousands of records, theseare held by the Cheshire Record Office, Chester. Ias a retired Police officer and voluntary PoliceMuseum Researcher am slowly extracting theserecords. Cheshire Police Officer Enrolment Recordsare held under Reference CJP7 Volumes 1-5, most ofthe records are very well detailed butunfortunately this does not help you and to tryand explain why. In essence Sergeant WilliamWallace was a member of the Chester City Police,this police force was totally independent of theCheshire Constabulary, it being formed in 1836, itremained independent until 1949 and only then wasit amalgamated with the Cheshire Constabulary.Sadly when the amalgamation took place in 1949only one document that records officers detailscame across with them, by comparison with otherpolice records is does not contain a great deal ofinformation of the individual. The following isrecorded within this one volume (CJP20/7/1)Sergeant 196 William Wallace, Born Circa 1836Ireland. Joined Chester City Police 9th June 1865and remained in service until his death on the12th February 1886. His rank at the time of hisdeath is given as Detective Sergeant and that hehad prior service of 7 years with the DublinMetropolitan Police, and sadly this is all that isrecorded.If you so wish, you can of course have the recordsconfirmed by the Chester Records Office Archivist.But it would be remiss of me if I did not pointout that The Record Office will charge you aminimum of £27 per search per volume; so please beaware. This Museum normally operates on a donationbasis and only if the enquirer thinks they havereceived information worthy of a small donationand this if you so wish can be sent to theCurator, Mr. Peter Wroe, Museum of Policing inCheshire, Warrington Police Station, ArpleyStreet, Warrington, Cheshire WA1 1LQ.In trying to avoid your disappointment that wehold very little information I have made somefurther enquires. I understand that his recordwith the Dublin Metropolitan Police should beavailable through Dublin Metropolitan PoliceRecords, National Archives and Garda Archives,Phoenix Park Dublin but please research this viathe internet. I am led to believe that theserecords do contain some personal information.Within the Cheshire Museum database we have addedwhere applicable the reference BSI, this appliesto a website known as the Black Sheep Index(www.blacksheepindex.co.uk) this is a site thatcarries newspaper articles concerning PoliceOfficers. On occasions the officer's full name isnot given, but we have tried to make a matchagainst what the Museum Records show. There arecharges involved to obtain these newspapercuttings direct from the owner of the website. Itis emphasized that the Museum does not known thecontents of these cuttings and takes noresponsibility for them. The Museum is onlyshowing this as an aid that there is furtherinformation from another source and we receive nopayment whatsoever from this company. Next toWilliam's name he has two year references 1873 and1881, the 1873 one refers to an article aboutfraud case when he is noted as a Detective and the1881 article refers to his obituary.I note in your enquiry that you say he wasresident in Gloucester Street in 1871, I have justchecked this on the Census and I see that he has ason Samuel J. Wallace aged 9 years. This Samuel J.is in fact Samuel John and he was a member of theCheshire Constabulary. I have attached his record,again if you so wish you can confirm thisinformation with the PRO at Chester, Samuelspersonal record is recorded under CJP7 Volume 3,and his marriage details under CJP24/2 and butagain please remember that to confirm this it willcost you £54.Collar Number/Rank. PC514 Samuel John WALLACEBorn. 1861, Dublin, (This perhaps may give anindication as to where William may have been born)Date of Entry. 27th September 1881Date of Leaving. 15th October 1886Final Date of Leaving. 15th October 1886How Discharged. Dismissed.Initial Posting. HQ Reserve, Chester.Other Postings and Dates. Posted 10 June 1882Runcorn, 26 February 1886 Wirral (Birkenhead)Miscellaneous Information. Previous OccupationClerk, Religion Protestant, Irish, Height 5' 8",Age 20, Eyes Blue, Hair Light Brown, ComplexionFresh, Build Proportional.Promotion. None.Misconduct. July 1883 Disobedience of Orders innot forwarding reports to HQ, Severelyreprimanded. July 1883 Being improperly dressed onParade at the General Inspection at Runcorn on the21st July, by not wearing Regulation Boots, Fined5/-. 25/03/1885 Gross carelessness in not keepingDivisional Books properly reprimanded and reducedto 25/8d per week by Chief Constable. 15th October1886 Ordered to resign, reason not stated.Weekly Pay. 27th September 1881 23/11d, 11th March1882 24/6d, 17th March 1883 25/8d, 25th October1884 26/10d, 26th December 1885 26/10d.Awards/Good Conduct/Other information. None.Marriage RecordOfficer. Samuel John WALLACEOccupation. Police ConstableAge. 25 yearsCondition. BachelorPlace of residence at Marriage. Birkenhead.Date of Marriage. 16th May 1886Place Married. Parish Church Runcorn.Fathers Name. William WALLACE.Fathers Occupation. Police Inspector. (You willnote that on Williams information it gives hisrank as Sergeant, he could well have been anInspector at the time of his death we may neverknow, there is also the anomaly in that in everyother marriage record that we hold, which is inexcess of 1000, it will always give whether theofficers father was deceased or not, in this caseWilliam had been dead nearly 3 months, why hadSamuel not declared this?Spouse. Annie Mary BOOTHOccupation. Nil.Age. 21 yearsCondition. Spinster.Place of residence. Runcorn.Fathers Name. J.H. BOOTHFathers Occupation. Grocer, Cheshire.If you also read the history of the CheshireConstabulary "To the Best of Our Skill andKnowledge" which is on the Museum Web Site, withinthis book there is a Section on the History of theChester City Police. I feel certain that a usefulpicture can be obtained of life in the force atthe time, my own opinion is that discipline wasdraconian and those who strayed outside the rule'swere fined way above what they earned ordismissed. Also the restrictions on their privatelife, an officer was not allowed to drink on oroff duty even in his own home. It all comes downto the fact that up until the 1960's every ChiefConstable of Cheshire and Borough and City PoliceForces was an ex military officer and they ofcourse brought with them the military codes ofpractice. Lastly there are some wonderfulphotographs on the net of Chester as it was aroundWilliam's time, just Google "Photographs ChesterCity"Lastly in February 2009 an Andrea Westrequesting information on William Wallace, LindseyHedges stated she was the 3 x Great Granddaughterof William. Perhaps you would like to get in touchwith them obviously you are all connected.I trust you have not been too disappointed by thelack of information on William and that whateverelse we have given you will have helped. Can Iask you when you get a moment would you send aquick mail so I can mark of your enquiry ascomplete? If you wish to make any comments good orbad about the Museum Service please do so. If youhave any further questions please don't hesitateto contact me Jim Talbot. Trustee and Researcher,Cheshire Museum of Policing.Our Ref: JT/2/2009You're Ref:Date: 12th August 2009Museum of Policing In Cheshirehttp://www.museumofpolicingincheshire.org.ukDear Ken,Delighted to have been able to help to deal withyour questions I will go with the easiest first,our Website is as you see above, all the HistoryBooks are within the drop down menu on the left,any difficulties please come back to me.With regard to William's death etc, as I gothrough the records, which incidentally are inexcess of 14000 and which has taken the past 5years of my spare time to compile, it is easy forme to see the full picture. I am currentlytranscribing General Orders from 20th April 1857,they basically give a day by day account on theworkings of the Cheshire Constabulary and at thispoint it should be said that there would be verylittle difference between a Chester City Policeman(William) and a County Policeman (Samuel), themain difference being that City Policemen/BoroughPolicemen were only responsible for the area inwhich the City/Borough fell. The County Policemanhad all the authority for his County and of coursethroughout England as time progressed. As I said Samuel had not declared that his fatherwas dead, may be as I said some type of rift hadtaken place between them and that is why Samueljoined Cheshire Constabulary in September 1881 asopposed to trying to follow in the footsteps ofhis father. But looking through the records theremany officers who sons followed them my own is aDetective Sergeant, another member of the MuseumCommittee has a continual line of service from1860 and that's some going, here we are lookingfor some reason why Samuel had not stated hisfather was dead, and in fact it could well be thatthe Sergeant he recorded the information did nothave all the facts and just recorded what hethought was right, we will never know.I have numerous Kelly's Directories' for Cheshireand many of them do not record the Constables onlythe senior officers or as you say Detectives,other Directories record the Constables so I thinkit basically was a case of what the producer of aparticular Directory thought was best at the time.With regard to Police houses in 1881 all PoliceOfficers lived in accommodation provided by theWatch Committee (Modern day Police Authority) orwould receive a rent allowance for accommodationthey rented from a Landlord, a weekly allowance of4/6d to 5/- per week was paid to the officer. Evenin those days there were all types of restrictionsplaced on the officer that lived in policeproperty, you could not hang pictures on the wall,the cheapest of wall paper would be supplied every7 years, and many other petty restrictions. If itwas a County owned property it was always classedas a 'police station' particularly in the morerural areas and the officer's wife would beexpected to be there basically as an unpaidassistant to the Police. Prior to William's deathhe would be earning about 32/- per week as aSergeant, from this he would have to pay a weeklyamount into the Superannuation Fund of about 1/- ,which was by no means a small amount. This wouldnormally be returned to the officer at the end ofhis service in the form of an annual pension atthis time it was about £50. William had in factonly served about 15 years when he died, hisservice with the police in Dublin would not countand there was no provision for a widow to receivea police widow's pension. His widow would haveprobably received a gratuity lump sum of anywherebetween £40 and £50.With regard to Samuel's record believe me when Iwould say Samuel's record consists of pettyoffences. The Chief Constables at the time CaptainThomas Johannes Smith 1857-1878 and Captain JohnWilliam Arrowsmith 1878-1881, Lt. Colonel JohnHenry Hamersley 1881-1910, as you can see all wereex Military Officers who I believe were trying torun a civilian force along Military lines andinstil military style discipline amongst the men.I can see in a lot of the discipline records thatthere is certainly dissent amongst the men.Drunkenness was a particular problem amongst theConstables and it was more or less instantdismissal if found drunk, it then got to the stagethat so many officers were being dismissed fordrinking that they were short of men and a fineprocess was brought in, then after being reportedthree times for drinking/drunkenness then youwould be dismissed. Captain Arrowsmith isdocumented in the force history as being a harshdisciplinarian.I have checked the database for the names you gavenone are recorded, however it may be worth tryingMerseyside Police and the person to contact is aMrs. Kate McNichol. Information and ManagementDisclosure Department she is in charge of all theold records but I should point out that they don'thave a museum or records like we have, but it'sLastly I note you say your wife's sister JoanJackson served with Special Branch in Liverpool Iam assuming that you originate from Liverpoolyourself Ken. I was actually born in the Dingle,and went to Dingle Vale Secondary Modern School(DVS) after a few years in the Merchant Navy Ijoined the Army, then in 1975 Cheshire Policeafter walking the beat for two years I wastransferred to Special Branch and spent the next23 years there and finished my service in 2002.Right, hope this has gone someway to answeringyour questions, if you have anything else pleasedon't hesitate to ask. When I get to the year 1881of the General Orders I will keep an eye out foranything in there that may not be showing inSamuels personal record which I have now comeacross on numerous occasions for other officers.The likes of an officer being reported for assaulton a member of the public in 1868 and fined 10/-by the Chief Constable this is what it says in hispersonal record. However General Orders gives amuch fuller version, the officer had in fact drawnhis Cutlass and stabbed the man with it and reallywithout provocation. Sincere best wishes Jim.